Touch screens are prevalent in today's computing environment. Portable computers, desktop computers, tablets, smart phones, and smartwatches employ a touch screen to gain user input for navigation and control of these devices. Thus, discerning the intent of the user via touch inputs becomes an important feature of a touch screen device. Further, distinguishing actual touches to the touch screen by the user from noise and other non-input detections is also important for delivering meaningful communication of the user's intent through touches to the touch screen.
Typically, an input to a touch screen (e.g., a touch) is initiated by the user by placing a finger on the touch screen, which causes the touch screen to generate a variety of signals to identify the location of the touch on the touch screen. Further, sometimes two or more touches are intended simultaneously so as to convey the intent for a specific navigation command, such as a reverse pinch to zoom within an application that is currently running, a pinch to zoom out within an application, or a swipe with multiple fingers to close the application altogether. Thus, deciphering the intent of the user when simultaneous touches are received is an important feature of any touch screen device.
However, conventional touch screen interpretation techniques may interpret an elongated touch by a single finger as two close finger touches, resulting in incorrect operation by the electronic device utilizing the touch screen for input. Since this is clearly undesirable, further development in touch screen interpretation techniques is needed, particularly in the area of how to interpret elongated touches by a single finger.